Jesus the Unstoppable, Unkillable, Ultimate Weapon of Doom?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 17, 2026
7 Easter, A
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Psalm 66:7-18
John 14:15-21

So, in the Legend of Zelda video games, when you finally get to fight the big, bad, boss guy, Gannon, you get to fight him twice. You defeat him the first time, and then he immediately comes back from the dead, bigger and badder, and you get to defeat him all over again. It’s fun, some lovely extra play time, and I’m pretty sure that’s what Jesus’ disciples thought was going to happen when Jesus was resurrected, that he had come back bigger and badder, and ready to destroy the Roman Empire.

When Jesus told the disciples they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit, in Acts 1:1-8, they asked if he would be destroying the Romans and establishing his kingdom over Israel. That’s exactly what they thought he was going to do prior to his death, and after his resurrection, it seems like they thought he was even more powerful and would then take care of it, but his answer was still “no”. Jesus wasn’t going to kill a bunch of people to force his way in the world.  

Instead, he told his disciples to continue his mission of healing and reconciliation in the world. 

Unlike for the evil bad guy in the Legend of Zelda games, the point of Jesus’ resurrection was not that he would return as an unstoppable, unkillable, ultimate weapon of doom for his enemies. The point of Jesus’ resurrection was to show us that not only did God share in a death like ours, but that we will then share with him in a resurrection like his. 

Life continues on after death. Healing and reconciliation continue on after death. Our unity with God and one another continues on after death, and even during death.

Even in death, God is with us. We often feel God is with us when life is going well. Some of us feel God’s presence in beautiful worship. Some feel the Spirit moving in times of great joy or purpose. Some know God is with us when we experience blessing in our lives. 

Jesus’ suffering on the cross, his death, and resurrection assure us that God is with us even in our suffering. Peter says as much in the reading we heard today, 1 Peter 5:6-7. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” God is with us and for us even in the dark times, so Peter tells his readers to give their anxieties and fears over to God. That’s the kinda stuff the bigger and badder resurrected Jesus is going to take on. 

He already took on our sin, and that killed him, but it couldn’t keep him down. Jesus proved more powerful than our sin, so what does he ask to take on now? All the stuff that causes us to sin. Give all that stuff over to Jesus, and let him fight it out for you, and know that you are not alone.  

“Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour,” Peter wrote. “Resist him, steadfast in your faith, [cast all your anxieties on Jesus], for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.”

Folks in Peter’s time were going through what he called “a fiery ordeal,” and Peter told them to rejoice since they were sharing in Christ’s sufferings. Ok, truthfully, rejoicing that we are suffering seems a bit much to me, but accepting the suffering and finding joy that Jesus joins us in that, that makes sense to me. When we suffer, Jesus is with us and has suffered with us. That means too that Jesus is with us and we will join with him in healing, joy, a resurrection like his. 

Now, the fiery ordeal that Peter was addressing seems to be that other folks weren’t too keen on that church being followers of Jesus. It seems like the church Peter was writing to was deeply disliked and even persecuted for their faith. ‘Remember guys,’ Peter was saying, ‘remember that folks did the same thing to Jesus when they didn’t like what he had to say, and they even killed him for it. So, Jesus is with you in your suffering.’

Notice that he didn’t tell them to take on an “us against the world” kind of stance. Cast your anxieties on God, Peter said. Give them over to God so that God can deal with your fears, rather than you living with them all alone. Don’t take on the world, thinking that unstoppable, unkillable, ultimate weapon of doom, Jesus, is going to fight against and kill all the bad people for you. Give all your anxieties to God, realizing that suffering indeed happens. 

There are Christians today who do seem to feel that unstoppable, unkillable, ultimate weapon of doom, Jesus is going to kill all of the people they think are bad, and they talk like Jesus’ disciples did in Acts 1, when they asked Jesus if he was going to kill the Romans and establish his kingdom in Israel. “Not gonna happen, guys.” That was Jesus’ answer to his disciples back then, and that is Jesus’ answer to the ultra-nationalist Christians nowadays who think they should be able to force their faith and way of life on others.

Forcing one’s faith and way of life on others may seem faithful to those who do it, but it isn’t loving, and it isn’t focused on eternal life. Those folks may think they are focused on eternal life, but really, they’re focused on avoiding punishment when they die. That’s not eternal life.

Jesus told his disciples what eternal life is, that we may know God and Jesus Christ whom God sent. That goes beyond faith, beyond belief. Knowing God goes beyond proclaiming certain doctrine as true. Knowing God comes not just through faith, but through love, as John tells us in 1 John 4:7, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” 

Eternal life is knowing God, and those who love, know God. So, those who love have eternal life. Do you love? Then fear not, for you have eternal life. Do you love? Then fear not. Cast all your anxieties upon God because God cares for you. Do you love? Then give to God all of the worries and fears that cause you to sin, and ask the unstoppable, unkillable, ultimate weapon of doom, Jesus to fight those worries and anxieties for you. That is the battle Jesus wages in his resurrection, not against our physical enemies, but against our spiritual enemies. Jesus’ battle is against the fears, the hates, and the hurts that lead us to harm. 

So fear not, and trust that Jesus is with us in our pain and in our suffering. Jesus shares with us in our suffering, and we share with him in his resurrection. Trusting in Jesus, then cast all your anxieties on the unstoppable, unkillable, ultimate weapon of doom, Jesus, who loves and cares for us. Then, love others as he has loved us, for God is love. To love is to know God, and to know God is eternal life.

Rejoicing as Calm, Peace, and Striving for Justice

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church
May 21, 2023
7 Easter, Year A
Acts 1:6-14
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
John 17:1-11

 Rejoicing as Calm, Peace, and Striving for Justice

In the movie, “Flight,” Denzel Washington plays an airline pilot who made a miraculous landing in a crippled airplane that should have crashed, and he was able to save all but three people on board, and those three died because they took off their seat belts. The only problem was, he was drunk and high on coke while he was flying.

Throughout the movie, he’s heralded as a hero, which he certainly was, and there was an investigation into the flight, as there certainly should have been. So, as he’s hiding the fact that he was drunk and high during the flight, he spirals further and further into alcoholism. He fights the truth because in his mind, it doesn’t matter if he was drunk. He’d landed the plane. No one else could have done what he did. He was a hero, and he should have been lauded as a hero. At the same time, he is thoroughly miserable and pretty much seems to hate himself, his life, and most everyone in his life.

The investigation turns up missing vodka from the plane, which he had drunk, and his team of lawyers decide to say that one of the flight attendants who had died, had drunk the vodka. All Denzel has to do is lie, agree to that story, and he’ll be off scot-free, and exalted by everyone as a hero.

As he’s about to give this lie, he finally realizes that he can’t do it. He can’t lie about this flight attendant who had herself saved another passenger, buckling a kid into his seat, which is why she was out of her seat and died. He admits to being drunk and high while flying and ends up in prison over the whole thing. No more flying. No more career. No more being a hero in people’s eyes.

Rather than being miserable, however, he ends up sober, happy, glad that he finally admitted what had been going on. He says that for the first time in his life, even though he’s in prison, he’s finally free.

“Humble yourselves,” Peter wrote. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that in due time he may exalt you.” Until the end of the movie, Denzel Washington’s character, was seen as a hero, lauded up high by everyone, but inside, he was down in the dirt low. He was miserable. He was angry. He was scared, and he resented and drove off everyone around him.

Then, he humbled himself by admitting the truth, and finally, he was exalted. He was in prison, but he was exalted, because he was finally joyous and free. He was also no longer alone. We see, while he’s in prison, pictures and letters from people who care about him, people whom he had driven, but who have now been able to reestablish their relationship with him. Even though he’s in prison, he’s finally exalted.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that in due time he may exalt you.”

Ok, so let’s look at what this passage obviously doesn’t mean. If you talk like crap about yourself, and if think like crap about yourself, then God will reward you by making you ruler of everything. That’s obviously not what this passage means. Being humble does not mean thinking badly of yourself, and being exalted by God does not mean becoming the best, most important person ever.

True humility means seeing ourselves as we truly are and accepting ourselves as we truly are. If we’re great at stuff, we can admit that. We don’t have to be jerks about it, but can admit that we’re good at things. Where we’re not good at things and probably never will be, we get to admit that too. We look deep within ourselves and admit our faults. We get to admit our triumphs. We get admit where we’ve hurt and harmed others. We get to look at ourselves with deep honesty. That’s humility.

Now another thing Peter writes about in his letter is not just when we hurt others, but when we are unjustly hurt by others. What does humility have to say about that?

Humbling ourselves when we are unjustly hurt by others can mean not accepting their hurt and denigration of us. Humbling ourselves, again, means accepting ourselves as we truly are, not as the person who hurt us sees us. Then, humility can be letting go of the resentment we have toward that person. “Cast all your anxieties upon [God], for he cares about you,” Peter writes. Letting go of anger and fear is an act of humility. Doing so gives God something to work with to help heal us. I’m angry, I’m fearful because this person is hurting me, Lord, and I can’t handle it all on my own. I need your help. As we seek humility, even when we’ve been harmed, we open ourselves up to God’s healing.

What about, however, when we’ve hurt others? Well, humility in that case is admitting the fact that we have hurt them, and then also looking at why we hurt them. Perhaps because they hurt us first, and they absolutely deserved whatever we did? Perhaps we hurt someone because we were scared or anxious? Again, when we look humbly into the depths of ourselves, at the truth within us, we give God something to work with to be able to exalt us.

So then, what does being exalted look like? I first talked about Denzel Washington’s movie character being exalted by being in prison but also, finally being joyous and free. I said that being exalted does not mean becoming the best, most important person ever. In this life, being exalted is not about being raised up above others. Being exalted is about being raised up out of our own misery and fear. Being exalted means being able to love who we are, warts and all. Being exalted means trusting that God cares about us, casting our anxieties upon God rather than lashing out at others because of our anxieties and self-soothing through destructive means.

Calm. Peace. Acceptance. That’s what being exalted by God looks like. Freedom from the bondage of hatred and resentment toward those who harm us unjustly. That’s what being exalted by God looks like. Even when our enemies are society at large or our governments, even when they are the ones who harm us unjustly, Peter writes for us to rejoice. That sounds odd.

“Rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.” Rejoicing doesn’t mean pretending to be happy and acting like nothing is wrong. Rejoicing can look like can look like calm, peace, acceptance, and letting go of hatred and resentment. Rejoicing can look like casting our anxieties upon God. Rejoicing can look like trusting that while in this life, all will not go as we want or deserve, there is a new life after death in which God will grant us the love, the delight, and the exaltation we deserve.

With rejoicing as calm, peace, acceptance, and freedom from hatred and resentment, we get to rejoice and still admit sorrow. Admitting the fact that we are still hurting and afraid is part of humility and being exalted. Rejoicing, exaltation, and humility don’t mean that we’re going to be a doormat. When being unjustly oppressed by others, rejoicing doesn’t mean that we say, “No, it’s fine. You can keep on oppressing me. I’m good.” That’s not rejoicing. Rejoicing means striving for justice. Rejoicing means joining with others to stand up to oppressors, but doing so with love rather than hatred.

Rejoicing doesn’t mean denying the hurt or pretending all is well when all is not well. Doing so is the opposite of humility: pretending, lying to ourselves and everyone else around us.

That’s what Denzel Washington’s character was doing in the movie, Flight. Humility is honesty with ourselves, honesty with others, and honesty with God. Exaltation is freedom from the bondage of hatred and fear, freedom from self-loathing, freedom from anxiety and misery.

Rejoicing, even amidst suffering, is calm, peace, acceptance, and freedom from hatred and resentment. Rejoicing is sometimes still mingled with sorrow, but rejoicing is trusting in God. Even though all will not be right in this life, all will not be as it should be in this life, we rejoice as all will be well. Whether in this life or the next, we rejoice as all will be well. We rejoice with the exaltation of calm, peace, acceptance, and freedom from hatred and resentment that is brought by humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God and casting our anxieties upon him, for he cares about us.